The Works of Rigoberto Torres provides the first mid-career view
of an artist whose work has drawn its inspiration from the Bronx community.
Seen and collected throughout the world, Torres' life-size figurative
sculptures are rooted in a celebration of daily life in the South Bronx
neighborhood where he grew up. His plaster and fiberglass life-casts,
which have been described as humanistic naturalism, provide empathetic
studies of real peoplefamily, friends, and the strangers he has
met at public castings. His streetside events lend the work an element
of performance art and create a bond between artist, subject, and audience.
Four large scale public murals, produced in collaboration with John Ahearn,
have been part of the Bronx landscape for over ten years.

Torres is known to the public in several roles that have been played
simultaneously in relation to the artist John Ahearn that of collaborator,
that of assistant, and that of an independent artist who has been influenced
by Ahearn's casting technique and subject matter. For both artists the
work is strongly identified with their South Bronx neighborhood which
provided much of the subject matter and in which both lived until 1994.
That neighborhood brings to mind many associations. It is known for its
extreme poverty. It carries memories of burning buildings which appeared
nightly on the evening news throughout the 1970's and early 1980's. Also
known for its dynamic street culture since the 1970's the South Bronx
has been the epicenter of hip hop, break dancing, graffiti and rapit
is still influencing style into the 1990's. This was the time and the
place where Torres' work beganin 1979, shortly after the eighteen
year old was encouraged by his cousin Wally to drop by Fashion Moda, a
newly founded alternative space in the South Bronx where Ahearn was making
plaster body casts of people from the neighborhood. Torres became one
of Ahearn's subjects. Torres' first works created at this time were exhibited
at Fashion Moda along with Ahearn's work in 1979 under the exhibition
title, South Bronx Hall of Fame. The Lehman exhibition includes
Shirley (1979), one of the busts Torres produced for that exhibition.

Fashion Moda provided an infusion of energy to the art of that period
by creating a place where an exchange of ideasfrom downtown artists
working in the Bronx and street artists in the Bronxcould take place.
The gallery, which began in founder Stefan Eins'' studio at 3 Mercer Street
in Soho, moved to a storefront at Third Avenue near 147th Street in the
South Bronx in 1978. There it provided a laboratory where untrained artists
and those with art school backgrounds exchanged ideas, made art, and exhibited.
Many graffiti artists made their transition from subways to canvas at
Fashion Moda It was here that Jenny Holzer and Lady Pink collaborated.
Fashion Moda was an early venue for many artists whose reputations were
established in the 1980's including Tim Rollins + KOS, Crash Matos, Joseph
Nechvatal, Kiki Smith, Christy Rupp, John Fekner, Justen Ladda, Tom Otterness,
Daze, Joe Lewis, Jane Dickson, Lee Quinones, Futura 2000, and Rick Proi.
The following year, 1980, both Ahearn and Torres were involved in the
historic Times Square Show, which took place on several floors of an abandoned
massage parlor arranged by Colab, an artists' collective.

During the Fashion Moda exhibition, Torres began casting works on the
street outside his Walton Avenue apartment where he lived with his parents.
In 1980 Ahearn moved to Walton Avenue at Torres' suggestion. Here much
of the work of the two artists took place on the street, drawing the attention
of the surrounding neighborhood and volunteers who submitted to the process
of casting. Earlier castings were sometimes displayed on the wall of a
building to announce the event which drew crowds of people to watch the
artists at work. In the early 1980's the artists moved their studio to
Dawson Street (later moving back to Walton Avenue in 1983) and again the
street-side castings drew an audience and new subjects. It was in the
Dawson Street studio that the public murals had their beginnings. Three
of the murals, created with funding from HUD, through the Department of
Cultural Affairs Community Development Program and the Bronx Council on
the Arts, are on exterior walls of apartment buildings and are tied to
the revitalization of the neighborhood. (Torres' works are also found
in many homes throughout the Bronxit is his custom to give the subject
a second version of the casting.)

In the early years Torres brought to the relationship with John Ahearn
an introduction to people in his Walton Avenue neighborhood that was to
become a major source for both artists' work. Torres also brought experience
with plaster castinggained in his uncle Raul's shop, Paul's Statuary
Co., which casts works ranging from saints for botanicas to famous reproductions
from the history of art. It was Torres' uncle's technical advice on creating
rubber molds and casting in fiberglass that made the exterior wall murals
possible. Multiple castings were also facilitated with this technique.
The artists' work expanded from busts to include full length figures and
later figures in the round. From Ahearn's perspective Torres also brought
to the relationship his detachment from the art world and a core personality
that made the collaboration possible. It is impossible to discuss either
artist's body of work without a consideration of the other. Ahearn and
Torres continue to work together, assisting each other with casting.

Born in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, in 1960, Torres moved to New York when
he was four years oldfirst to upper Manhattan and then to the Bronx
after being burned out of the Manhattan apartment building. Torres returned
to Puerto Rico in 1990 where he produced twenty-two works over the course
of a year. Ruth Fernandez ( 1991), a cast of the popular singer
who has entertained generations of audiences, was among the works created
during that year. It is a monumental work which combines the realism of
traditional portraiture with the iconic presence of a devotional statue.

Torres explores subjects which are similar to Ahearn but he strays from
the socially conscious underpinnings of the former. Torres is not an outside
observermany of the larger tableaux include family membersfrequently
his children. In some works the casting technique is used as a starting
point to develop the imagined rather than to represent people as they
actually are. Mermaid ( 1993) was cast from his two year old daughter
and based on a small figurine in his uncle's statuary shop, and Fortune
Teller (1995) was based on a casting of his sister-in-law. Both works
are in sharp contrast to the more serious subjects Torres tackles in The
Rescue ( 1993) which demonstrates a strong interest in narrative contentthe
child in this scene is his daughter.

We are fortunate to include three works completed in 1995 following a
year long interruption due to a severe asthma attack which prevented Torres
from working. The exhibition also includes several early works which are
rarely seen, Mice in the Pool (1984) and Jack and Jill (1985)
as well as Fashion Logs (1985), sculpted from wood. Works cast
during a return to 42nd Street as part of a project sponsored by Creative
Time and the 42nd Street Development Project in the summer and fall of
1993, are also includedamong them Alex with Parrot (1993),
which provides a lively character study of a figure from Times Square.

Torres' detailed works are vivid and bursting with life down to the texture
of wrinkles and pores and yet they veer from the tromp l'oeil realism
of Duane Hanson or the monochromatic tableaux of George Segal. Torres'
richly colored figures seem as much about painting as about sculpture.
In some work the serene countenance is almost reminiscent of the polychromed
statues of the ancient world. The works of Rigoberto Torres with their
sources so close to home provide a unique look at a contemporary art grounded
in the Bronx community.

The combined efforts of many people made this exhibition possible. We
are grateful to Rigoberto Torres for his generous contribution to the
planning of all aspects of this project and for the helpful conversations
with regard to the work. We would also like to thank John Ahearn for his
advice and assistance with the installation and catalogue and for his
enthusiasm for this project from its inception. The assistance of Brooke
and Carolyn Alexander of Brooke Alexander, Inc., Ted Bonin, gallery director,
as well as Rhea Anastas and Anne Duroe, provided very important support
for the exhibition. We are also very pleased to include Dan Cameron's
essay on the work of Rigoberto Torres as part of the catalogue. Once again
we are fortunate to work with Leandros Patathanasiou of Athens Printing
and as always his helpful guidance proved invaluable. We would also like
to acknowledge and thank Ivan Dalla Tana, D. James Dee, and Martha Cooper
for their photographs for the catalogue. We are very grateful to the lendersthe
Lannan Foundation, Margaret Hutto and Jill Newmark, William and Norma
Roth, John Ahearn, and the Gonzalez Familyfor their help in making
the exhibition possible.

I am greatly indebted to the staff of Lehman College Art Gallery for
their support in all phases of the projectto Skowmon Hastanan for
her exceptional work in two rolesthat of registrar and that of graphic
designer, to Christopher Anselmo Priore for his education programming
for all age groups during the exhibition and to Mary Ann Siano for her
development work which has allowed this project to happen. I would also
like to thank Joel Holub and Dan Shure for their help with the photography
for the catalogue.

Finally, I am extremely grateful to have the support of a board of trustees
and a college administration committed to the arts. Both share the belief
that arts programming is a significant part of education.

This exhibition has been made possible by a grant from the National Endowment
for the Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts. The exhibition
and education programs at the Lehman College Art Gallery are supported,
in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural
Affairs, The Bronx Council on the Arts, the National Endowment for the
Arts, the Institute of Museum Services, a federal agency, the New York
State Council on the Arts, the Herbert and Edith Lehman Foundation, the
Robert Lehman Foundation, The Joe and Emily Lowe Foundation, the Greentree
Foundation, the Joyce Mertz-Gilmore Foundation, The Travelers Foundation,
J.P. Morgan Charitable Trust, AT&T, The New York Community Trust,
Chemical Bank, Citibank, the Ronald McDonald Children's Charities, The
Henry Luce Foundation, and Friends of Lehman College Art Gallery.